Many Langara College students have a hard time connecting with each other and making friends on campus.

With a large percentage of Langara students aiming to transfer to universities, many of them are only at the college for a short time.

Alex Daniels, a computer science student, said the college isn’t unfriendly, but isn’t friendly either.

“There’s definitely some sort of barrier between the ability to just sort of walk up to somebody and connect with them,” Daniels said. “I find that most of the connections I’ve made at this school is because I was in some sort of group project.
“I haven’t made many friends outside of class.”

Criminology student Sydney Yuers said students need to take the first step and initiate friendships.

“I feel like a lot of people are shy on this campus,” Yuers said. “But if you’re the one that put yourself out there and you start talking to someone, everyone’s really friendly and willing to be your friend. It’s just people don’t really talk to each other a whole lot.”

Danielle Travassos, a psychology and women’s studies student from Brazil, finds herself busy from school and works 20 hours per week.

“I particularly don’t have much time to make friends and hang out,” Travassos said.

Getting into clubs

The Langara Social Club was launched in 2012 with the aim of improving Langara’s sense of community.

“[Last year] we had our annual Halloween pub-crawl, our annual lunchbag, a couple of other pub-crawls, we co-hosted ‘Thirsty Thursdays’ and a cookout,” said marketing management student Genevieve Fontanilla, a group organizer.

However, that club is on hiatus. Fontanilla said they hope to resume in the spring.

Jack Lin, a social sciences student, would like to start a volleyball club but is worried nobody would participate because so many students don’t participate in campus activities.

“I know there used to be a volleyball club but they stopped operating,” Lin said.